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Paltry Tribute to a Yankee Lost Too Soon

LITTLE NOTICED Thurman Munson Way, better known to residents of the South Bronx as 156th Street.Credit
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

ON a lonely block in the South Bronx, beyond the reach of Yankee Stadium’s shadow and the championship trophies’ shine, a forgotten memorial to a fallen baseball demigod sits hidden in plain sight.

A green street sign hangs at the corner of Concourse Village East and 156th Street, the font shrunk to fit all the letters in a mouthful of a name from generations past: Thurman Munson Way.

Yankees fans need no reminder of Munson, of course. He was the team captain and an All-Star catcher when he died in 1979 at age 32 in the crash of his personal plane. With a trademark mustache and big-city toughness tempered by Middle American values, Munson was one of the most popular Yankees during the 1970s, when the team was filled with large personalities.

But now, three decades later, most people who walk down Thurman Munson Way, a one-block stretch not far from the Nos. 2 and 5 trains, know it as 156th Street. And Thurman Munson?

Do not ask a taxi driver to take you to Thurman Munson Way. And do not ask Lashay Fuller how to get there, even when you are both standing right on it.

“My friend from Queens came up here and he called and said, ‘I’m on Thurman Munson.’ I was like, ‘Where is he?’ ” Ms. Fuller recalled. “And I’ve lived here 21 years.”

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig have plazas by Yankee Stadium; Mickey Mantle has a restaurant on Central Park South; Thurman Munson was granted a narrow stretch of road between a rail-yard bed and a hulking housing complex.

The Yankees are festooned with history, and honoring every shard of the pinstriped mystique could reshape a city map. But to many people, Thurman Munson Way and its constellation of potholes hardly count as a prize. The road lies nearly a mile from Yankee Stadium, far enough away that only fans who celebrated a win too hard would end up there. No businesses are on the street, and no houses.

Photo

Thurman Munson

The road did not exist until the 1960s, when the city built an elevated passageway above the tracks of the old New York Central Railroad, according to Lloyd Ultan, the Bronx’s official historian.

“We had a walkway that had no name at all, and the sentiment was to name it after Thurman Munson,” he said. (Though it is known as 156th Street, a glance at the map shows that it does not line up with the rest of that street. “That’s because it wasn’t really part of the original grid,” Mr. Ultan said.)

Two schools were built on the road years later, and today they each house several schools — including Henry Lou Gehrig Junior High School. A mural of the Yankees slugger hangs in the school’s lobby, ensuring that the Jeter generation knows Gehrig’s name, if not Munson’s.

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“He wasn’t about the big superhighway and mainstream streets,” she said. “It fits his personality so much more that it would be an out-of-the-way street and be something that not a lot of people would embrace.”

“After 30 years,” she said, “he would just be pleased that they’re still talking about him.”

It remains unclear exactly why this street was chosen to honor Munson. Henry J. Stern, who was a member of the City Council’s parks committee when the honor was bestowed in 1979, could not recall the exact circumstances. But he said it was probably chosen because it was reasonably close to Yankee Stadium.

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Luis Cartagena, a teacher at Public School 31, which is on the street, said that fixing the potholes would make the block a better honor.Credit
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

“It may have been some people there asked for it, or it may have been in anticipation of future development of the area, which did not materialize,” Mr. Stern said. Either way, he concluded, it has not worked out. “We have not yet paid our debt to Thurman Munson. With a new Yankee Stadium, maybe it’s time to think about putting Thurman Munson Way closer to the complex where people can see it.”

The Yankees organization has not forgotten about the catcher who died too young. Memorabilia shops near the stadium sell Munson jerseys alongside those screaming Jeter, Mantle, DiMaggio and the rest.

Fans still marvel at Munson’s poise behind the plate — he was the American League rookie of the year in 1970 and the league’s most valuable player in 1976, the same year he batted .529 in the World Series. They remember his clashes with Reggie Jackson over who was the franchise player. (“I’m the straw that stirs the drink,” Jackson said soon after he joined the Yankees. “Munson thinks he can be the straw that stirs the drink, but he can only stir it bad.”)

As a tribute, the team has kept Munson’s locker vacant since his death. Last year, it was taken to the new stadium.

On a recent blue-sky afternoon, Ruben Gonzalez was among the fans who passed through Babe Ruth Plaza to watch the Yankees lose to the Los Angeles Angels, 5-3. No, Mr. Gonzalez had never heard of Thurman Munson Way.

“There should be something that’s visible and shows him some respect,” he suggested.

Mark Strain, a first-grade teacher at Public School 31 on Thurman Munson Way, is a Mets fan, but even he thinks that the road is a poor tribute.

“I think he should have gotten a better street,” he said. “I mean, this is kind of an insult.”

Luis Cartagena, a fellow teacher at P.S. 31, said that if the city was serious about honoring Munson, it would at least fix the potholes.

But Mr. Cartagena also imagined that Munson, a devoted father of three who once asked to be traded so he could be closer to his family, would have enjoyed watching the parade of students walk his block, shouting as they chased one another across the blacktop.

“It doesn’t get livelier than this,” he said.

A version of this article appears in print on April 18, 2010, on Page MB1 of the New York edition with the headline: Tiny Tribute To a Yankee Lost Too Soon. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe